Just my 2 cents worth... Can good exist without evil?
Consider
Isaiah 45:7. Some have seen an important difference in the verbs used here. What is said is that the Hebrew verbs used for "create" in the context of "light" and "peace" indicate a different activity than the verbs used for the "create" of "darkness" and "evil." I'm no Hebraist and can't really argue it one way or the other, just my observation of what the "experts" have opined.
The idea here is that God did NOT really have to do anything to create "darkness." God's activity was to create the light, however a necessary consequence of "light" is shadow and darkness. To really understand this you have to appreciate that there was no "darkness" before the time of the creation. "Darkness" first appears as a consequence of the presence of "the earth" and "the deep..." (
Genesis 1:1).
Basically, it is said, to "create" the "darkness" all God had to do was to simply do anything at all. Just by being there and having an existence distinct from anything else, darkness would come into being. There are no shadows in the void. Only when you have a light source do you have a shadow.
So, perhaps, it is with God and evil. All He had to do was to do anything at all and there existed at least the potential for evil. His nature is such that just by "showing up" other things suddenly are compared in contrast to Him. Inevitably, some things look really bad.
As a corollary, consider how it was when He first "showed up" in your life (I remember mine). Suddenly I didn't feel like I was so just and righteous. In fact, I felt rather unclean. He has that effect, just His presence.
So when He created anything that existed apart from Himself, that "thing" or person immediately had at least the potential to be evil. It was inevitable. The only other choice would have been to do nothing at all, and then where would we be? We simply wouldn't be. There would not have been anything but Him and His holiness. But He appears to have wanted something more. And so, there's us and evil and pain and suffering and moments of joy and everything else.
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